Pay-what-you-want / name-your-price pilot
Letting customers set their own price, bounded to a beta or a narrow pilot rather than ongoing subscription billing.
Customers choose what to pay, usually against a floor and a suggested anchor price, instead of picking a fixed plan. Used deliberately as a narrow, time-boxed device — most often during a beta — rather than as a permanent pricing model.
Why this ring
Worth evaluating specifically as a bounded beta/pilot device: charging anything during a beta screens for real intent and improves feedback quality. It is a poor fit as a standing subscription model, since recurring billing needs a stable, predictable price and renegotiating a self-chosen number at every renewal creates friction rather than removing it.
SaaS fit
Fits early-stage or pre-launch SaaS gathering willingness-to-pay signal from a small beta cohort. Does not fit an established product's core, ongoing subscription pricing.
How to apply it
When to apply: You're running a beta or narrow pilot and want a genuine willingness-to-pay signal rather than free-tier engagement that tells you nothing about price sensitivity.
First steps: Set a floor that covers your marginal cost, publish a suggested anchor price so people aren't guessing, cap the pilot to a fixed cohort size and duration, and be explicit upfront that pricing will move to a fixed plan after the pilot ends.
Pitfalls: Leaving it open-ended into general availability, omitting an anchor price (most people default to the minimum with no reference point), and using it for recurring billing where customers expect price stability at renewal.
Metrics to watch: Share of beta users who pay anything at all, average price paid versus your anchor, and conversion rate to fixed-price plans once the pilot ends.
Resources
- Pay What You Want Pricing for SaaS and Digital Products: When It Works — Explains why PWYW fits bounded betas/experiments but breaks down for ongoing subscriptions.
- Pay What You Want Pricing — General framework for floor/anchor design in a PWYW model.
Who does it well
- Humble Bundle — Long-running, successful pay-what-you-want model for software and game bundles, with a suggested-price anchor and charity split.